Brexit Thread

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

That was a pretty dire result in the by-election, whichever way you look at it.

It's not looking dire from here at all. Notably, Labour only really held the other seat because the Right Wing/Brexit vote appears to have been split between UKIP and the Tories, and this after UKIP's new leader was hit by a fairly hefty public-relations ruckus.

Don't worry though, I'm sure Corbyn will be re-elected at this year's Labour Party Conference.

[Beskar]

It's not looking dire from here at all. Notably, Labour only really held the other seat because the Right Wing/Brexit vote appears to have been split between UKIP and the Tories, and this after UKIP's new leader was hit by a fairly hefty public-relations ruckus.

It was when he was saying he was the camera man during the moon landings, and Neil Armstrong stole the limelight as they wanted to film the 'first' steps which got me doubting his authenticity.

[LittleGrizzly]

Speaking of him, Corbyn has just managed to lose a seat that has been Labour since 1935.
...................................................................................................

How about all the Scottish seats Blairite policy destroyed Labour in?

How many of them? how long had Labour held them all?

The reason Labour finds itself unelectable is because of years of Blairite policy destroying Labours left wing vote, we weren't winning elections before Corbyn came along, we were losing.

This is also without the Blairite wing making every effort to sabotage the party.

I remember hearing when I was younger about the genius of Blair proposing Conservative policies in the house of commons and forcing the conservatives to either oppose what they support because Labour proposed it or back Labour policy.

Genius, apart from the fact many Labour supporters, who voted Labour exactly because they didn't want Conservative policy.

The Labour party is suffering a pretty bad hangover right now and reaching back for the whisky that caused it in the first place would be the worst thing it can do.

[Pannonian]

Speaking of him, Corbyn has just managed to lose a seat that has been Labour since 1935.
...................................................................................................

How about all the Scottish seats Blairite policy destroyed Labour in?

How many of them? how long had Labour held them all?

The reason Labour finds itself unelectable is because of years of Blairite policy destroying Labours left wing vote, we weren't winning elections before Corbyn came along, we were losing.

This is also without the Blairite wing making every effort to sabotage the party.

I remember hearing when I was younger about the genius of Blair proposing Conservative policies in the house of commons and forcing the conservatives to either oppose what they support because Labour proposed it or back Labour policy.

Genius, apart from the fact many Labour supporters, who voted Labour exactly because they didn't want Conservative policy.

The Labour party is suffering a pretty bad hangover right now and reaching back for the whisky that caused it in the first place would be the worst thing it can do.

By Conservative policy, do you mean things like invoking article 50?

[LittleGrizzly]

That's people policy to be honest with you. As stupid and costly as its going to be people voted for Brexit so the politicians have to give it to them, even as someone who doesn't want it myself the only way out I could possibly justify is holding another referendum once the terms of Brexit are clear.

For someone who rants at Corbyn for his lack of electability it seems a strange criticism, surely anything else would have really annoyed leave voters whereas it is hard for many people to complain about Corbyn accepting the referendum result.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Speaking of him, Corbyn has just managed to lose a seat that has been Labour since 1935.
...................................................................................................

How about all the Scottish seats Blairite policy destroyed Labour in?

How many of them? how long had Labour held them all?

The reason Labour finds itself unelectable is because of years of Blairite policy destroying Labours left wing vote, we weren't winning elections before Corbyn came along, we were losing.

This is also without the Blairite wing making every effort to sabotage the party.

I remember hearing when I was younger about the genius of Blair proposing Conservative policies in the house of commons and forcing the conservatives to either oppose what they support because Labour proposed it or back Labour policy.

Genius, apart from the fact many Labour supporters, who voted Labour exactly because they didn't want Conservative policy.

The Labour party is suffering a pretty bad hangover right now and reaching back for the whisky that caused it in the first place would be the worst thing it can do.

Now hang on a second, Tony Blair never lost an election.

This is the last election he fought, in 2005: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...election,_2005

You can clearly see that Labour's heartland in Scotland is largely in tact, the SNP has made only small gains at this point and Labour is very much the party of Scottish Government, in the Scottish Parliament too irrc.

Labour loses it's first election in 2010 under Gordon Brown, who is generally considered to have been Left of Blair, and does even worse in 2015 under Ed Milliband who was significantly to the Left of both. Indeed, the SNP's almost clean sweep happened under "Red Ed". Now Labour has lost a By-Election to a sitting Government in a time of economic uncertainty under the Far-Left Corbyn.

At this point simply claiming "we weren't Left-Wing enough" is not credible. The more Left-Wing Labour goes the less the public is buying what they're selling. That's not surprising, really, because the General Public don't want a Left-Wing or Right-Wing government - they want a Centerist one. That's why Blair and Cameron both did well, because they represented the more Centrist parts of their own parties, and they nabbed good ideas "from the other side."

Even that isn't really the problem, though, because the reality is that politics aside Corbyn is not a good leader. He applied a three-line whip to the Brexit vote and then didn't punish MP's that rebelled.

[Pannonian]

Now hang on a second, Tony Blair never lost an election.

This is the last election he fought, in 2005: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...election,_2005

You can clearly see that Labour's heartland in Scotland is largely in tact, the SNP has made only small gains at this point and Labour is very much the party of Scottish Government, in the Scottish Parliament too irrc.

Labour loses it's first election in 2010 under Gordon Brown, who is generally considered to have been Left of Blair, and does even worse in 2015 under Ed Milliband who was significantly to the Left of both. Indeed, the SNP's almost clean sweep happened under "Red Ed". Now Labour has lost a By-Election to a sitting Government in a time of economic uncertainty under the Far-Left Corbyn.

At this point simply claiming "we weren't Left-Wing enough" is not credible. The more Left-Wing Labour goes the less the public is buying what they're selling. That's not surprising, really, because the General Public don't want a Left-Wing or Right-Wing government - they want a Centerist one. That's why Blair and Cameron both did well, because they represented the more Centrist parts of their own parties, and they nabbed good ideas "from the other side."

Even that isn't really the problem, though, because the reality is that politics aside Corbyn is not a good leader. He applied a three-line whip to the Brexit vote and then didn't punish MP's that rebelled.

I remember when Blair was Leader of the Opposition. He and the Shadow Cabinet consistently put Major's government under intense pressure, forcing policy changes and ministerial changes when they weren't up to scratch. Nowadays Corbyn draws a salary as Leader of the Opposition, but I'm not sure which part of the job description he does. On an issue where 48% of the electorate voted otherwise, he whipped his party into ushering it through without requiring scrutiny. The Opposition are supposed to be Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. If they don't oppose, are they still loyal? Shouldn't they hand over to someone who will do the job more effectively, like the SNP?

[LittleGrizzly]

So all those Labour voters switched to SNP because of Ed Milliband?!

They'd been delighted with Blairite policy all these years but then because Ed was slightly to the left of Blair they all jumped ship to the SNP?

I'd be amazed if you could find even a small percentage of SNP voters who would have voted Labour rather than SNP had the labour candidate been more of a Blairite than Ed.

Ed walked into an impossible job in Scotland, just like in 1997 they wanted to kick the Tories out of Scotland except this time they were wearing red rosettes.

I realise you have a lot of bias when it come to Corbyn but don't you wonder at all why Labour had lots of Scottish seats before the Blairites took power but within a few years of them leaving power Labour has lost almost all of them.

Being too left wing isn't the reason all those Scottish voters abandoned Labour, they abandoned them because they did nothing for them in office, they abandoned them because they noticed very little difference to the Tories, which is why they all but kicked them out of Scotland first.

Labour has an identity problem now partially left over from the Blairite years where it is difficult to prove to a large amount of potential Labour voters that we are different. Too many of them remember Blair and believe differently.

[LittleGrizzly]

You would just have people whining that he didn't care about electability, one of your biggest complaints about him. Especially considering it was UKIP who were going to be a threat in some Labour seats.

But then for this issue you don't want him to do the sensible thing in terms of electability but to do what you want him to do despite the fact it will cost him votes.

So you don't really care about electability wen you criticise him on other issues, you just use electability as a cover to attack him for not doing what you want.

For once Corbyn is doing the most sensible thing in terms of vote winning and those who criticise him most strongly still criticise him for it. It is almost as if their problem is ideological...

[Fragony]

You would just have people whining that he didn't care about electability, one of your biggest complaints about him. Especially considering it was UKIP who were going to be a threat in some Labour seats.

But then for this issue you don't want him to do the sensible thing in terms of electability but to do what you want him to do despite the fact it will cost him votes.

So you don't really care about electability wen you criticise him on other issues, you just use electability as a cover to attack him for not doing what you want.

For once Corbyn is doing the most sensible thing in terms of vote winning and those who criticise him most strongly still criticise him for it. It is almost as if their problem is ideological...

Would it be odd if it was ideological? Corbyn's selling point is being ideological, that is the path he takes.